The rules on seam allowances

Seam allowances are always subject to loud and cantankerous debate. Okay, maybe not but that doesn’t mean folks don’t have tightly held opinions they’ll defend to the death, using their seam allowance as some sort of body armor. The answer is, it depends. However, it depends less on your comfort level or preconceived ideas than it depends on equipment. There is a whole chapter in my book about it starting on page 129. So, in order to answer the question of proper seam allowances, you must determine what kind of equipment will be used to sew the seams.

Overlocks (sergers) Let’s do the easy stuff first -overlock machines or sergers. Is it a three or four thread overlock or is it five thread with a safety stitch? The latter requires 1/2″, the former is 3/8″. Yes I know some people will use 1/4″ on a three thread but we don’t talk to those people. I kid, I kid. Context is everything, my suggestions are optimized for a commercial environment. You can get away with 1/4″ on a 3 or 4 thread home machine sewing for yourself but I wouldn’t do it with a pattern that contractors will be sewing up for you. In summary, any seam that will be overlocked, regardless of where it lies (cuffs, shoulder or side seams, collar etc) is either 3/8″ or 1/2″.

Single needle seam allowances Wars have been started under flimsier pretexts. That thirty years war you read about in high school? That began over the proper hem allowance for draperies hung in Lutheran vs Catholic churches, bankrupting most of western Europe in the process. With single needle (meaning your typical lock stitch machine), seam allowance is relatively arbitrary because you can set to needle where ever you like. That said, there are preferred guidelines such as:1/8″ bound shirt sleeve vents used in conjunction with cuffs CF/CB plackets

1/2″ I have only ever seen 1/2″ seam allowances -remember, we’re talking about lockstitch machines- used by DEs. 1/2″ is hands down, their favorite. On everything. Everywhere. Knit or woven. Serger or lockstitch. It’s there. Maybe they even have little shrines to it. They’d probably invite the 1/2″ seam allowance to the company picnic if they could. What’s scary these days is that we have so many smaller contractors who’ve come up through the ranks and have never worked in a larger production facility themselves, that they use it the same way. ~shudder~ makes me shiver all over, blind leading the blind and all. And I am just having a bit of fun. Probably 75% of my readership uses 1/2″ allowances just as I’ve described them and I certainly don’t intend to alienate anyone. See caveat at close.

Seam classes Now is when things get more confusing because some seams are more complex than merely laying two layers together and joining them. Consider a hem, typically you make two turns. Each turn can be different depending on a variety of things (preference, equipment, material etc). Complex (and simple) seams are described in seam classes. We love seam class specifications, yes we do. We even have books about them. Some seams we debate long and loud about are french (used on silk) or even flat felled seams. In the case of flat felled seams, it depends on whether you’re using attachments (see below) or doing it manually. And if manually, how you learned to do it. Just to fan the flames, silk seams are usually 5/8″ total. 1/4″ for the first pass, 3/8″ for the second. In industrial sewing, two sides joined together don’t necessarily have the same seam allowance. In the case of flat felled seams, one side of the seam is 1/4″ to 3/8″ (depending on material weight) and the other side is 5/8″ to 3/4″ (ditto).

Hems depend on preferences such as finishing and equipment. Expensive long dresses will have a much deeper hem, 3″ is common. If it’s a shirt tail hem and turned by hand, the total allowance is 5/8″ (first turn is 1/4″, second is 3/8″). However, if you’re using a folder to sew the hem, that’s usually 1/2″ (below). But even folder hems vary. A handkerchief hem can be minute, maybe 1/4″ total. If there aren’t two turns, it’s not technically a hem. One turn is just an edge finish which is not to suggest it is inappropriate on things like visible facings on better goods.

Then, there’s other stuff you sew to products, like zippers. It’s impossible to give a set allowance because this depends on the width of the zipper tape and the desired finish. Heavier zips have wider tapes. If there’s a lap to cover the teeth in a centered application, the allowance will be greater than if teeth are intended to be left exposed -such as in sportswear. Similarly, if you have an overlap construction, one side of the zipper will have a greater seam allowance. Well, not really seam allowance per se but most people think of it that way. A lapped construction will mean the two sides will vary in their nett distance from the (presumably) zero point of CB/CF (or where ever it is the zipper is inserted). Also, zipper allowance can depend on material weight because this affects turn of cloth. For example, a zipper in an outer weight jacket in heavier goods will take a 3/4″ allowance. A lighter weight will only take 5/8″. A dress or blouse made in very light goods may only be 1/2″ (invisible zipper) etc. In sum, yes it varies but it’s not arbitrary such as “whatever works best for you”. It’s more specific than that. You can derive rules for specific circumstances and apply them uniformly. See my zipper sewing tutorials for applied examples.

Binders and folders The matter of attachments rear their ugly heads. Attachments are doo hickeys you can attach to a machine to partially automate a process. As I said in my book:

…binders and folders are more obstinate and opinionated than I am. Binders and folders don’t care what your favorite couture expert says, they don’t care about “opinion” or “whatever works best for you”. Worse, binders and folders are disrespectful and undermine your authority because they don’t care who owns the company. These attachments will only sew own way and one way only which is fortuitous. Being precisely engineered tools, they perform operations better than human hands.

And even then, you may have to alter the width of the start point of certain seams (like flat fells on jeans) so they will feed into the folder. Often, a contractor won’t say anything and just sew these up and you’ll be none the wiser unless you take really good spec measures of finished products and idly wonder where 1/4″ of the spec went. Ask me how I know.

Does it really matter? And if you wonder, seam widths really do matter a great deal and for several reasons. As I bang on about non-stop, it’s easiest to sew curved seams (necklines etc) with a smaller allowance more accurately. The wider the allowance, the harder it is to hit the sewing line, so no, we don’t use smaller allowances because we’re cheap. Which is not the same as denying we’re cheap because we often are. We use smaller allowances because they’re more accurate to sew. The other reason is that professionals will automatically sew your goods to optimal widths regardless of what you had in mind. It really is a good idea to set your allowances to the preferences and habits of those doing the work. Meaning, that if your contractor uses 1/2″ on a lockstitch as a matter of course, that is fine. Seriously. If they’re not used to using 3/8″ in places the rest of us would but you decide to conform because of the little joke I made about inviting the 1/2″ seam allowance to the company picnic, you could be inviting a whole host of problems. Put it this way. If I were using a contractor who was otherwise stellar but habitually used 1/2″ allowances, I would change my patterns to match their working preferences.

Related: Seams have names and official designations indicated by codes. If you buy industrial equipment (usually new), the machines are often rated or described by seam class codes. If you’ve ever seen a “service line” put out by machine manufacturers, each operation of a garment is usually listed by code. You can find out more than you’d ever care to know in my book (which explains anatomy of a seam class etc) and in the forum.

Get New Posts by Email

Related

Kathleen started production patternmaking in 1981. Starting in 1993, she began providing consulting and engineering services to manufacturers, small companies, and startups with an emphasis on developing owner-operator domestic cut-and-sew operations. In 2015 she opened a 5,000 sqft. fully equipped sewing factory: The Sewing Factory School. Kathleen is the author of The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Sewn Product Manufacturing, the most highly rated book of any topic in the garment industry. She's been mentioned numerous times in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, National Public Radio, Boston Globe, LA Times, Vogue, French Vogue and has at least 15 Project Runway alums at last count. Kathleen writes nearly all of the articles on Fashion-Incubator.com and hosts its forum, the largest private online community for apparel manufacturers on the web.

You mean, other than that they couldn’t decide on draperies and decided to go without altogether? Probably because they were found guilty (bad stitching really was a crime in those days) and sentenced to be thrown out said windows. Which they were …landing in a huge pile of horse $hit and vexing the count, even had the gall to survive the 90 foot fall. Sentence carried out, they were free to roam the countryside whilst poorly patching capes and hosen.

I have a silly question on overlock seam allowances. Are 3/8″ and 1/2″ the seam allowance as marked on the pattern or the finished seam allowance after sewing? I think most of my RTW knit garments have 1/4″ finished overlock seam allowances, and I’m pretty sure 1/8″ is trimmed during sewing. That would mean a starting seam allowance of 3/8″.

My patternmaking teacher and the patternmaking book, matter-of-factly stated 1/2″ seams were standard in the industry. This is, of course, more accurate than the 5/8″ in home sewing patterns where most of us started.

Hmm, I got lost with all the imperial measurements, although the principles are those I’ve worked to for years.

Here in Australia, I’ve always used 7mm for 3 thread overlocking, which I believe equates to a scant 5/16″. 5 thread overlocking uses 12mm, (1/2″) and seams which will be overlocked separately and pressed open use 1.5cm, which is a scant 5/8″. Enclosed seams such as collars and faced edges use 5mm, or 3/16″. Interesting that we are probably all using the same contractors in China, but haven’t yet standardised our nomenclature :-) and I’m pretty sure there are millimetres here and there that don’t match up. These measurements allow for 2mm trimmings. Trainee machinists apparently went through hell having the trimmings measured until they were up to scratch. So I heard – I never was a trainee machinist, and there are few factories left here now to bother. The local contractors are, as Kathleen mentioned, virtually self taught and some of their practices take my breath away, in a bad way.

On my domestic equipment, I measure the distance from the edge of the foot to the needle, and move the needle side to side accordingly so I can always use the right edge of the foot as my guide. It’s more accurate and I like to have the maximum seam allowance covered by the foot, seeing as the grip isn’t so good as on an industrial. Fully to the left usually gives a 1cm/ 3/8″ allowance, and fully to the right is usually 5mm. I put a line leading straight forward from the needle on ALL my machines, it makes darts a breeze. If I’m doing something complex where I don’t have an edge to refer to, I tape a fine cord along this line so I can feel where I’m headed. For inside and outside corners I draw a grid on tape with a fine marker and apply it around the needle. That way I can see where the stitching needs to start and stop relative to the edge in front or behind the needle. (If necessary I adjust for parralax error.) I’ve been able to eliminate a lot of pattern marking by putting the information onto the machine.

Oh, and thank you for introducing me to the term defenestration. We have several examples in my family history, although as most houses in Australia are single story bungalows, they lack a certain drama, merely resulting in bung knees, half hearted grudges and funny stories for 21st birthday parties.

LisaB, I have the exact same question. Is 3/8″ cut off (and then the stitching takes up more on overlock) or is the actual seam at 3/8″ (so you cut off less). With home sewing and straight stitch, it’s easy and that’s my only frame of reference other than what I taught myself.

Thanks, Kathleen, for this article. Very timely as I may need to prepare my patterns for someone other than myself.

Thank you, Kathleen! You know, what drives me really crazy about commercial sewing patterns is that all of the seam allowances need to be adjusted. Seriously, 5/8″ on a collar stand? Really? And people wonder why they can’t sew it well. I have seen some vintage patterns that have varying seam allowances throughout. On my single-needle, I use 1/4″ everywhere except at the side seams (where I use 1″ for fitting purposes – the excess is trimmed off) and at the crotch (where I use 3/8″). It is amazing how much smaller seam allowances increase accuracy and greatly simplify construction.

Gigi – oh, how I agree! I just finished sewing a men’s shirt (commercial pattern – I’m not feeling skilled enough to draft my own, but at least now enough to alter the pattern to my liking, and to fit the bf better), and the 5/8″ were *everywhere*, and it makes no sense. To begin with, the 1/2″ we are being taught in fashion school to use, felt very wide, but really… the 5/8″ is so unneccessary.

Kathleen – thank you for this gold mine of a site. I’ve only started reading the articles in earnest this past week, and I’ve already learned lots, as well as now having an increased desire to learn all there is to pattern-making and the more technically sound sewing practices.

Thanks for all this info! I am a ‘made to measure’ pattern- maker trained girl and am now doing commercial patterns for a friend. Having never worked on commercial patterns I am still a little confused with standard allowances! Is the 1/4″ seam allowance the standard for overlocked seams (stretch fabric) and 1/2″ the go for side seams etc? Thanks lovely ladies Tonia

Tonia “Commercial” patterns is the colloquial term for home sewing patterns. As mentioned in this entry, the seam allowance on those is 5/8″ -everywhere. Seam allowances for industrial patterns are explained in this entry.

Well Hell’s Bells! It’s true what they say about learning something new every day :) Ok, so I am, for the most part, self taught. And thanks to “commercial” patterns, I have spent my entire sewing life using 5/8″ seam allowance! Oh, it pains me to think of all the fabric I have waisted because of this….not to mention my uncontrollable swearing because thing weren’t assembling with ease. As soon as I read this entry, I ran and grabbed my gauge, shook my head and giggled a little. Now off to redraft every pattern I’ve ever made :) Thanks for the info, Kathleen. If I had the money, I would just pay you to come live with me and slap my hand with a ruler every time I use ridiculous practices. You like New Orleans, right!? :)

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Participate in this conversation via emailGet only replies to your comment, the best of the rest, as well as a daily recap of all comments on this post. No more than a few emails daily, which you can reply to/unsubscribe from directly from your inbox.

Community

Often described as the garment industry “blue book,” Kathleen's book is the most highly rated guide to the business. The Entrepreneur's Guide to Sewn Product Manufacturing is guaranteed to get you off to a solid start or your money back. Many service providers will require you to read it before they’ll work with you.